I final got an answer from the dealership. . .

They said that the there is nothing wrong with my truck. The said that the vibration is just a characteristic of my truck! Can you belive that! They said that they took my front bumper and brush gaurd off (???), removed my driveline and axels, drove it and it still does it. they put it on a lift and it doesnt happen. with a 500lb load, it doesnt do it. they said that they have no answer to it. and then they tell my they are going to charge me for 16+ hours of labor. Ha! Any ideas of what i should do next. Im thinking I need to take the issue to the ford manufacture, and go above the dealership with what they are trying to tell.

 

how come the 2000 dually and the 2002 pickup and my 2006 pickup work truck that the business owns doesnt vibrate?

 

humm..................

 

Interesting observation Stroke, my 2000 doesn't vibrate either....unless of course the Barrett is mounted on the tailgate...

 

thats what i was thinking. the only way i thought is if i have full floating rear axels, but i dont think the factory rear end has that, im not sure.

 

I am having the same issue with vibration when driving 40-50 MPH. Between my mechanic & his alignment shop it appears to be the rear inner tires. What I am told is the inner rear tires are "out of round" mostly on the drivers side. The supposed solution is to move the front tires to the rear (which have uneven tread due to misalignment) and replace the inners with new tires, then mount the inners on the front. I have yet to implement this as it looks to me like the front tires have less tread and aren't matched up to the rears in that regard, which I understood to be a no-no.

I took the truck to Wingfoot (commercial branch of Goodyear) to have all the tires balanced (took them 2 tries) and on the second attempt they measured all the rears for out of round, and stated that all these larger tires are out of round to some degree, and it's normal. They redid all the rears (balancing) and the vibration has reduced considerably since but is starting to come back a little more after less than a week of driving.

I have Kumho tires which I bought with the truck in TX, but I am considering purchasing all new Michelin tires at Costco as they are $100 cheaper than Wingfoot can offer ($256 in Clearwater, FL).

I'll weigh in when I decide what to do and what the results are...

What tires do you folks have and have you checked them for out of round?

 

What utter hogslosh!! And how the hell did they drive it after removing the driveline and axels?
There are some clues there, though. When they put it on a lift or loaded 500 pounds they changed the angle of the driveline. They should look to the u-joints, and test the truck on a dynamometer so it simulates driving it on the road. Some people have reported on this page that they needed to shim the mid-drive line carrier bearing (I think) to change the drive line angle to stop a vibration.
Anyhow, you should certainly first complain to the regional office to eliminate the charge for getting no answer, then hopefully find a better dealer shop.
Good Luck
Warren

 

I had a similar problem, I pulled both my drive shaft's( front and rear) all universal joints felt good to me but I thought maybe the ballance was off so I took it up to the road to a " pump and shaft" shop...they specalize in hydro pump's...well ....shafts.... to get them to check the ballance. About 10 minutes after I dropped the shafts off they called my cell and informed me I had 3 bad U joints. They replaced the U joints I re installed the shaft and havent had a problem since.

the reason for the long story getting to " I had bad U joints" Is I have changed and diagnosed a lot of U joints. I was a heavy equipment mechanic for 8+ years. All my joints felt fine!!! I even did the 50 mile drive then climbed under it and felt every one of the caps and none of them where even warm much less hot. So my advice... find a drive line shop and get them to check it out.

 

Good advice! I agree! The stealership is good at reading codes.

Good to know u-joints may be a possible problem even if they apppear to be fine.

 

That characteristic normally points to the driveshaft carrier bearing, or a u-joint.

 

That was another thing that i forgot to mention. they did also try shiming the carrier, with no success. what i think they said they did was pull the rear driveline and drive in 4wheel drive with the front driveline still installed.

Do these rear ends have floating axels, where they can pull the axles and leave the hub bolted to the axle housing?

 

could it be something so simple that they just overlooked it? like maybe the shocks. since i feel it mostly in the rear. and when the susp is either under load or completly unloaded (on a lift) it goes a way.

 

yes, they are full floating axles. remove the axleshafts, and the hubs stay there with the brakes and wheels. however i dont know how they kept the fluid in the axle, with the axleshaft plate and o-ring not being there to seal up the axle and all.

 

Also check for exhaust pipe rubbing somewhere.

 

I'm with strokin to on how they pulled that off....

I've posted this in two other threads concerning the vibration problems with our trucks. I'll just cut and paste it here. If you've read it before, forgive me, but if not, something to check out.

Ok guys and gals. I traded my Ranger for my early 99 with my brother-in-law. He's hard of hearing so it's no surprise to me he never heard or felt the rumble I was having just like everyone else here. I went and had the tires rebalanced and rotated (only 6k on them) and did not make a difference either. Everyone was telling me that it was the tires/wheels. There was no difference after the rotation, so in my relative shallow reasoning, I ruled out the tires/wheels. I thought, ok it's got to be the driveline. I'm thinking the carrier bearing. I have a very reputable driveline company locally that I've had great work from in the past. To my great big surprise it turned out to be a dry and non-sliding spline on the drive shaft. Those that notice a difference when loaded down is because your forcing the spline to slide in a little and that changes the dynamics of the driveshaft. I have almost 100k on my truck so I had the universal joints, carrier bearing, and the spline replaced and a new one welded on that has a grease fitting all for $300. Didn't think that was too bad. After taking it for a ride and being skepticle, it surprised me on how so smooth it was and absolutely quite throughout the whole speed range. He told me that I probably could have dropped the shaft, pulled the yoke/universal off the spline, cleaned and greased it and the trouble would have been gone. You all might look at that as your cause if your not getting any relief with any other fixes. I can't tell you how smooth it is now. I can understand how my brother-in-law didn't hear it, but crap, it would vibrate so bad, I can't believe he couldn't notice it. Good luck to all. Hope this helps someone.

Marty